I mean, if you want to go to One Seven Design, or Rowan Rook and Deckard, or the 200-word RPG contest, and print off a bunch of one-pagers? Sure. But if neither the niece in question nor anyone in her social circle is of the GMly persuasion, none of them are going to do a lot of good.

@Shalvenay I have a dear friend whose husband died unexpectedly; her daughter is the student leader of the school's RPG club. So I wrote up a game (maybe?) called "Struggling Together." A pile of chits that get passed back and forth in letters' envelopes when particular emotional notes are hit provide a win condition: making it through the game's 9 rounds without losing.

Like I said: definitely un-fun. Probably a co-op game, what with the rules and the possibility of losing. The roleplay--if that's what it is--is yourselves at different times after the shared difficult event.

So there's the question to the room: does it "count" as roleplaying if the character is yourself? What parts of what you think of as roleplaying is that consonant with, what parts of it does it challenge?

(For a less laden example than my game, consider a Fate session that a friend of mine runs at cons where your character is you, the scenario is something shocking (alien invasion, ninja infiltration) happening in the con-hall, your possessions in-game are what you have at the table.)

@Ben +3 and -3 are big modifiers to things that don't get too many of those bonuses. That's not to say they're bad, but I'd feel like if I hit level 3 I'd better have a clear--if not easy--way to bump back down a level if I focused on that. I might not want to, depending on the choices in front of me, but it should be obvious how to. (As a game-matter; passing no judgment on how well that fits with the lore you're trying to match.)

That's true. The idea is that the corruption is meant to be somewhat enticing... Like, a player is giving the benefit and the deficit, and has that "Do I want to keep it?" reaction that they mull over for a while.

They might go looking for better equipment, to negates the downsides. That's something I only just thought of haha. But is that such a bad thing?

@Ben (disclosure: I know nothing about the game you're imitating) how does one gain corruption? Is it an interaction with the environment? Through one's actions? Is it the intent of an action, or its effect, or consuming something?

@Ben No, though it's a predictable pattern that emerges with "I want to give this super-powered thing, so I'll just pair it with this painful detriment to keep it from getting out of hand." Players find ways to negate the malus and now they're just walking around with the bonus.

@nitsua60 The idea is that with this system, the players become more powerful, at a price. For those that don't want to pay the price, it can be removed, or managed. For those that don't care, well, there's a whole other reword for them coming at the end of the tunnel.

Mechanically though, perception and initiative aren't tied together, so it works haha

@nitsua60 I think I'll have to test it out, and see how it all works

The other choice I was going to make is that come a certain point, when the player gets too corrupt, they either make a save vs losing their character, or just straight up lose it (provided this whole set up is properly announced). "You've become so corrupt you've turned into a creature of hell"

A duck walks into a bar, sits on a stool, and asks the barman. "Do you have any bread?" The barman replies "no." The duck repeats himself "Do you have any bread?" The barman scowls "I said no, we don't" The duck continues "Do you have any bread?" The barman slams his hands down on the bar "No! And if you ask again I'll nail your bill to the bar!" The duck pauses. "Do you have any nails?" "No, why?" The barman scowls "Do you have any bread?"

@Ben Then they live. I mean, they're still out of combat while they're down. But the character lives.

I mean, at a certain point we're all adults and finding a few hours at a regular time to get together is hard enough. I'm not going to take someone's character sheet from them and rip it up. If they roll failed saves, rip up their sheet, and hand it to me, that's fine.

@Ben Sure--sounds reasonable. For me something that takes away another person's toy should be very carefully considered. (Whether that's character death for character-becomes-NPC-event.) And I've come down on the side of "you know what, I'm just not going to be the one to make that call." But everyone'll come to their own place here, and that's good.

Every situation is different :) Personally, I feel like I'm in the middle somewhere. I have one PC that was in a 50/50 TPK situation that was never resolved. I ruled that he's alive, even if the rest of the party say otherwise. It was never resolved so there's no hard proof. In other situations I've handed in my character sheet, reluctantly, maybe, but that's the luck of the dice, sometimes.

I don't like save or die much anyway. I set up deadly traps, but if you got trapped by them it's your own fault. I don't set up deadly traps that have consequences on failing a spot DC or can't be detected by careful players.

For some games that's "I choose to play Great Ork Gods and I know that means I'm probably gonna go through a sixpack of characters every session."

For other games it's "I'm playing Fate and at the beginning of the campaign we talked about how character death is possible but we don't want it to be anticlimactic." And for still others it's "I'm playing Do and that means my character can't ever die."

The real gut-punch that needs to be avoided is when a player didn't choose to risk death but gets it thrown at them anyway.

In Dogs, every conflict is about escalating risks in order to stay in the scene and have a chance of making it turn out your way.

If you start by shouting at each other and you run out of dice, you can throw a punch in order to add your punching-related dice and stay in the scene.

But you've also just escalated the kind of fallout that will come at the end of the scene: people who've taken "damage" in a shouty scene will get their feelings and reputations hurt. People who've taken "damage" in a punchy scene will get loose teeth and concussions.

If you pull a gun, somebody's liable to die but you can't control who that is. It might be you.

So pulling a gun is saying that you're willing to risk everybody's life rather than back down on whatever's at stake in the scene.

@Ben Yup. That's part of where Fate's advice is so important: they explicitly advocate making the stakes of any conflict clear before the conflict begins, so everybody knows what they're playing for.

@nitsua60 That's why Dogs works, really: it's supposed to be adversarial and so having a mechanic where players can risk each other's characters is crucial to getting everyone arguing in-game, because Dogs is a Forge game that wants to blur the lines between character feelings and player feelings.

It's... a bit abusive, if you don't go in understanding the Forge objectives.

But the proposal is a string of one-shots springing from the same corporate patron, so the intent is that lethality is a business cost; players will each have a stable of PCs to grab from when staffing a mission so while losing one may hurt, hopefully it's not too painful.

@BESW Well, technically, even if you're just throwing punches there's a chance to kill somebody. d6 fallout is enough to make a body save or go critical, d8 fallout is enough to go critical and need medical attention, but it is only d10 fallout that can kill you outright.

You also aren't going to get killed so easily if you're the only person who pulls a gun - fallout is by blow, not by conflict arena. Punches don't suddenly get deadlier because somebody pulled a gun.

Anyone in here played both CT and MGT2? I'm comfortable running CT, have picked up and flipped through MGT2, and would be interested in arguments for/against either of them. - For CT: cheap/small pdfs on DTRPG lower barrier to entry for players who may be considering their first foray into the Travellerverse. - For MGT2: it's probably at least marginally better in design than its forty-years-older brother. - For MGT2 (possibly a subset of the last): lingering debility rather than death during chargen.

My favorite line from Classic Traveller: in chargen-->attributes, "It is possible for a player to generate a character with seemingly unsatisfactory values; nevertheless each player should use the character as it is created…. Should a player truly consider the character so poor as to be beyond help, the low survival rate of the Scout Service may make it the best career choice.”

The point of Dogs is that yes, if you work together you're basically unstoppable... but the GM's role is to present situations where the Dogs have trouble agreeing on a course of action.

It's about moral crisis amongst people with moral responsibility for a community over which they have absolute authority... but no authority over the others who share that responsibility.

Most game scenarios go: "The characters have a goal, and must overcome obstacles to achieve it." In Dogs the goal is working together to solve a problem and the obstacles are each character's individual priorities, loyalties, and hangups that get in the way of agreeing on what solution they should work together on.

> If you create a character that you don't like, you may simply throw it away and create a new one; however, you may not create more than three characters. If you throw away your first two characters, you must keep the third. Remember that part of role-playing (perhaps the best part) is dealing with less-than favorable situations.

(Unstated is the fact that characters can die during the chargen process.)

I'm looking for film recommendations with a plotline about someone who's being somehow pressured into sharing the beliefs of the people around him, and/or penalized for failing to do so. Preferably not a "based on real events" thing; the more fantastical the better.

@nitsua60 Context: I want to make a double-feature with Polar Express, pairing it with a movie to watch first which helps re-frame Polar Express as a horror film. I'm thinking maybe a "belief" angle would be good.

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@Zachiel I pitched Sorcery at one of my groups. They were only interested if each of their characters could banish their personal demon and become redeemed. Is it possible to play it that way? Thanks in advance.

@Rubiksmoose I think it is because of the mysterious "completing your movement" mechanic. It just feels wrong that you can use your full move, then change your speed to give you more.

And I'm not sure the rules support that because I feel that it isn't really covered.

I don't think your logic is wrong, I'm just not sure it's fully supported. Much in the same way that the other ruling isn't fully supported.

But I think the difference is you're making the logical leap of "you are giving yourself more even though you've used your full movement" vs "you can't give yourself more because you've moved your full based on the grapple+move rules"

@Rubiksmoose is there a difference between pinging someone in the room vs pinging someone in the comment? I think it works the same and it keeps the question clean rather than kicking back up a discussion in comments.

But the way I'm thinking about it is: I can move X amount. If I drag someone I can move X/2. If I"ve used X/2 dragging them, then I've used my movement for that turn. Letting them go after X/2, does not give me back the remainder of my X because I spent my 6 seconds of the turn dragging them X/2.

@goodguy5 Well I am speaking from a 5e perspective. But yeah I would not consider dragon mag to be a source for rules.

SA definitely has a place in clearing up potential rules confusions and looking for rulings, but no new rules.

Now, if a new paradigm emerged where they deicded to release a bunch of official new rules through a magazine or other official source I would have to reevaluate my dichotemy. But I don't believe that is the case currently.

@Rubiksmoose But I don't think he's 'creating rules', he's just showing how he'd rule. And while his ruling are 'official' they do not replace RAW or even how a DM might rule. They're official guidance as intepreted by JC, but they aren't the rules.

WHicn now is pretty annoying how much we rely on them in answers here, amirite @nitsua60?

"Official rulings on how to interpret rules are made here in the Sage Advice Compendium. The public statements of the D&D team, or anyone else at Wizards of the Coast, are not official rulings; they are advice. One exception: the game’s lead rules developer, Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford on Twitter), can make official rulings and does so in this document and on Twitter. A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play."

@goodguy5 Just the one line would help yeah. The question cites the entire text (which isn't that useful really) but you would just need to point to it. Either quote or point to the line IMO would help.

@NautArch The way I look at all of those rulings, with each iteration of SAC, all twitters and twatters not folded into the compendium are rendered mooot, albeit of interest to GM's seeking advice. Compiled Answers: Sage Advice answers that are relevant to the current state of the rules are compiled here But that's my take, I understand that others will see it differently given the text you cited.

@KorvinStarmast I'm not seeing it like that. It seems like all his rulings, whether printed as Sage Advice Compendium or left in the twitterverse are equal. Do you have something else that says otherwise?